In AD 79, Pompeii and Herculaneum were controlled by the great city of Rome. We know much about Rome and its people through books written in the Latin language. Virgil and Pliny were famous writers of that time. In fact, there were two writers named Pliny, and both of them were caught in the eruption. Pliny the Younger survived and wrote a detailed diary about the disaster, but his uncle, Pliny the Elder, was killed